Usha Seejarim is a conceptual and socially engaged artist who uses found objects to communicate complex and simple ideas about the domestic position of women.
Seejarim holds a Master’s Degree in Fine Art from the University of The Witwatersrand and currently studying an MBA through Henley University. She is a sculptor who has built an impressive record having had more than 10 solo exhibitions, locally and internationally, represented on the Dakar and Beijing Biennales, with exhibitions in Paris, New York and Germany among others. Usha is best known for her reinterpretation of ordinary and domestic objects by making use of common materials such as safety pins, wooden pegs, irons and brooms.
She created the great slate figures representing the South African Freedom Charter, The wings outside the Radisson Red Hotel in Rosebank, a massive 40 ton sculpture at Burning Man in Nevada and is probably best known as the artist who produced the 2m high beaded portrait of Nelson Mandela, which formed the backdrop to his funeral in 2013.